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between the two buildings
    Mei Ling reached towards me, her arms outstretched. I stepped forward somewhat awkwardly and was about to shake her hand when she giggled and slipped past me. With a touch lighter than a racecourse pickpocket, she plucked the laundry sack from my shoulders and my swordstick from my hand, spinning me round by the sleeve to face her once more.
    ‘This will be taken care of downstairs,’ she said, placing the sack to one side. ‘While this’ – Mei Ling held up my swordstick and flicked back the catch to reveal the blade – ‘this interests me.’
    ‘Careful, that blade's sharp,’ I warned her.
    ‘Do you have much cause to use this?’ MeiLing asked, unsheathing the sword and holding it up to the light.
    ‘There have been occasions when I've had to defend myself …’ I said guardedly.
    ‘And this sword concealed within an innocent-looking walking stick has proved useful?’ Mei Ling said. ‘Show me.’
    She handed the sword to me and stepped back, her arms folded.
    ‘Show you? But how?’ I shrugged.
    ‘By touching me on the shoulder with the tip of your blade.’ Mei Ling smiled, her dark eyes glinting mischievously.
    ‘Just touch you on the shoulder?’ I said, making sure I'd understood.
    Mei Ling nodded.
    I raised my sword and was about to tap her right shoulder lightly when she stepped to one side. Spinning round, I tried again, only for Mei Ling to swerve elegantly past me, whispering in my ear as she did so.
    ‘Come on, Barnaby. Try harder …’
    I turned and feinted to my left, flicking my sword arm out at the last moment. Mei Ling leaped high to avoid the sword cut, only to land on the tip of the blade for an instant – her elegant slippered foot balanced on tiptoe – before somersaulting over my head. She tapped me on the shoulder, her beautiful face wreathed in smiles.
    ‘I'm sorry, Barnaby,’ she laughed. ‘I'm showing off. My grandfather says it is my worst trait.’
    I turned to her and sheathed my sword. ‘How do you do that?’ I asked, astonished at her acrobatics. ‘My old friend Tom Flint could balance on a rusty gutter two inches wide, but not on the tip of a sword …’
    Mei Ling motioned for me to sit at a low table by the window that had been laid for tea.
    Sitting down opposite me, she leaned forward and, with a charming frown ofconcentration, opened the cork stopper of a tall pot and put one wooden spoonful of the pale green powder it contained into each of the two handleless cups before us. As she did so, a sweet, mossy aroma filled my nostrils. Then, with the same calm attention to detail, she grasped the raffia handle of the bulbous copper teapot, which was steaming gently over a tea light, and poured boiling water into the cups, one after the other. The aroma grew more intense as a thin twist of steam rose up from the surface of the liquid. It was like no tea I had ever smelled before.
    ‘What is it?’ I asked.
    ‘Green tea,’ she told me, without looking up. ‘Fortified with ginseng and scented with jasmine.’
    Having returned the teapot to the cradle above the flickering flame of the tea light, she picked up a small whisk, fashioned from wood and dried twine, and gently beat the liquid before laying the whisk to one side.I reached out to take the steaming cup of tea in front of me – only to be stilled by Mei Ling.
    ‘Wait,’ she said. ‘First, look into the steam that rises from the tea. See how it twists and writhes … Really concentrate, Barnaby … Concentrate …’ Mei Ling's voice whispered hypnotically in my ear.
    I did what she said. As I stared at the ever-shifting column of dancing mist, something strange started to take place. It was as though the wisps of steam were taking on a certain solidity – like silken scarves, like dragonfly wings, like a fountain rising up into the air and disappearing.
    ‘Now, look into the spaces in the mist …’
    Sure enough, I found my gaze focusing on the spaces – like long tunnels